Three countries, one arrangement, and each move rewrote it

The arrangement has now survived two international moves, and nobody tells you that it does not travel unchanged. In the first country it was a secret from everybody including her sister. In the second it was perfectly legal, entirely ordinary and completely unmentionable at work. Here it is neither secret nor remarkable, and that has been the largest adjustment of the three.

Thirty eight and forty, Prenzlauer Berg, nine years open. We arrived two winters ago braced to spend the first year explaining ourselves and have not had to explain ourselves once. We had built a whole apparatus of careful phrasing and we no longer need any of it, and putting that down took longer than you would imagine.

What we want is one man, ongoing, seen often enough that nobody has to be introduced twice. She dates. He has known everything from the beginning and is at home rather than present. Our flat is large and quiet and the lease outlasts most people's plans, so the where of it is not a subject.

The single thing we would ask is that you are not doing this for the first time this month. We have taught somebody the vocabulary before and we were not good teachers, and it ended with all three of us slightly embarrassed. Two or three years in, having already had one thing end and knowing how that feels, is about right. Beyond that we are not fussy and we are not in a hurry.